Different Ending
by Karos
Summary: Same story, same players...But someone's out to make sure that there's a happier ending this time. Not a different ending...but an extension... (X2 and Comic spoilers, 1/1.)


Just a little something that sprang to mind…don't like it, don't read it.  Some spoilers, perhaps.

            Scott sits on the dock by the boathouse, staring at the stars as he sips on his beer.

            She's gone.

            Even now, his heart doesn't accept that.  He doesn't  think it ever will…because the part of her that was him, too, that they shared, is still there.  He'd know if she was dead.  Or so he'd always thought.

            He'd been wrong.

            She was his one, his only.  He knows that, from the depths of his heart.  And he knows that she felt the same for him.  

            Oh, he'd seen the way she looked at the Wolverine…seen the way he looked back at her, too.  And he'd known the confusion she'd felt, the fear.  And he'd been angry.

            But even then, on that level, that place where they were one in a way physical contact, the wildest sex, couldn't make them…they'd both known they were for each other.  They always had been, always would be.

            He was the only one she confided the hurt she felt when everyone assumed she was so much holder than he was, despite there only being a year's difference between them.  He was the only one who knew what could happen when she really lost that temper of hers that came with the hair.  And he was the only one she'd cried to when her sister had thrown the fit, last Thanksgiving, about not letting Jean near her children…not letting her make them freaks.

            And she…she was the only one who'd known that he didn't see things in shades of red, that his eyes, long ago, had adjusted and now filtered the red out.  She was the only one who smirked with him when Ororo stammered a remark about Scott not being able to tell which color flower she wanted.  She was the only one who he'd ever told about the things he'd done to survive on the streets, of what it meant to be blind and homeless…at the mercy of any s.o.b. who decides to mess with you.

            He realizes he's crying and carefully removes his glasses, keeping his eyes tightly shut as he wipes them.

            Opening them, he stares in shock at a man, tall, bulky, and with a golden eye and a silver arm who's appeared next to him.  He jumps up, hands ready by his temple…and at the same time he's reminded of a Christmas long ago, when his grandfather held him on his knee…

            The stranger ignores his actions, staring out into the night silently for a moment before speaking.

            "She isn't dead, you know."

            Scott stares, in anger now, at this man, this stranger, who would dare come to him now and lie about that, about _her_!

            "Relax," the throaty voice rumbled.  "I'm not here to attack you.  Besides, you always beat me in practice, Slym."

            Scott wonders what he's talking about, and how he knows the name Hank and Warren used to call him…

            "Who the hell are _you_, and what do you _want?!" he finally manages to force out._

            Scott never used to swear.

            "Cable.  It's as good a name as any, I suppose.  As for what I want…I want lots of things, Scott.  Most of them are impossible, now…I want you to know Jean's not dead.  She can't ever die, you know, not really.  She's the Phoenix now…she always comes back.  Just wait for her…she'll return."

            Scott's mouth is about level with his knees.  "Wha…"

            "Come on, Slym.  You're a Summers…she's going to be one by marriage…and we Summers are harder to kill than cockroaches."  The man called Cable gives him a grin, one that Scott could swear he's seen a dozen times on _her_ face…

            He blinks, and Cable's gone.  He's alone again…

            He stares at the water before finishing his drink and tossing the bottle into the murky lake.  

            Scott turns, heading back to the mansion, past the boat house, the one he now again hopes he'll one day share with Jean.

            Digging into his pocket, he pulls out an airplane ticket to Alaska.  He'd been going to get away from here and the memories of her…

            And, with a grin, Scott Summers throws the ticket into the wind.


End file.
